Just when we thought we had their plan figured out....  "Give all illegals amnesty, welcome their families across our borders, and we will have an unstoppable majority, a one-party system."  It seemed simple enough.  But behind closed doors, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid were planning a second attack, meeting with their weapons expert, Surgeon General Sanjay Gupta.  "You see," said Sanjay, "There is something called a rate/pressure product.  For our purposes, it means that if you can increase a susceptible conservative's blood pressure and get his heart racing, you can trigger a heart attack.  It only takes getting them really upset.  Now, if the blood vessels near the brain are in bad shape, you may get a stroke instead, but either way, it's a win.  We're looking at about a 5% mortality rate for first attacks.  And if we can make sure that no infrastructure spending on roads goes to conservative areas, we can increase transit time to the hospital and maybe get another percentage or two.  Those hardier ones, the ones who've been exercising and eating more like the far left PETA nuts, well, you may only plant the seeds of disease there...slightly higher blood pressure, decreased immunity and therefore increased susceptibility to illness and, in some lucky cases, cancer.  Some pundits, like Glenn Beck, are also helping our cause.  For some reason, many of his followers actually believe they can take M&Ms instead of their statin drug or beta blocker to manage their illness.  But depression is the most likely thing we can trigger.  That often occurs in people who feel that everything they love and cherish is being taken from them...that they have no control over the situation.  And depression can stifle even the strongest conservative.  In conservative women, it will also increase the incidence of infertility.  So I think it's a fairly comprehensive strategy."  Obama, not quite yet satisfied, stroked his chin.  "Under the new health provisions, can we deny treatment for most of these conditions?"

You love what you sacrifice for. That is why parents love their children, why soldiers love their country, why most of us love God, why many dedicated teachers love their students. They have sacrificed for them.
If the supporters of big government have their way, what will become of charity? People will no longer use their free agency to serve others and their country willingly and voluntarily, because it will be mandated by the government. When the government takes the opportunity for voluntary sacrifice away from people by dictating what and how they have to give, no charity or love or devotion will be developed. There is no nobility, no honor, in doing what you're forced to do. Anything mandated or done under coercion has no power to change the hearts of people for the better. Paying my taxes so I won't go to jail doesn't sanctify me.
There is a reason why giving, why being charitable, feels so good. Because helping and serving others, using our own free agency, affirms to our souls that we have done something in harmony or agreement with our very natures as children of the same Heavenly Father. And why, on the other hand, being forced, by a government, to give our substance to whatever that entity chooses, feels so wrong and unjust. Because it robs us not only of our income, but of the opportunity to exercise our freedom to share it as we wish--to be charitable. It robs us of our opportunity to do something noble and good and replaces it with a mandate to do something required. It is all about free agency and who grants us that agency. God would have us use our freedom to help others, and we feel happy as a result. Our government, more and more, dictates what we give and to what causes, and we feel resentful as a result. It does not foster love of country. It does not foster a reliance on each other. It does not foster nobility or greatness. It breeds mistrust, resentment, and reliance on government instead of on God and each other. If those in our government enslave us to large federal programs, we will become a nation full of people doing their "patriotic duty" without any sense of patriotism, parting with their substance without any sense of giving, taking up weapons of war without any sense of defending--doing things that would be noble, right, and good, if only they had not been made amoral by becoming acts of compliance rather than conviction.

If I hear the phrase one more time, "We have to do something" to justify this unconscionable monstrosity of a "stimulus" bill, I will scream so loud that every child in this neighborhood will shriek in terror. What kind of stupid explanation is that? It's as ridiculous and far-reaching as an unwed 14-year-old who gets pregnant and says, "Well, we were both in the bed and...We had to do something." Sometimes doing nothing is a better choice. Sometimes zipping up our pants and rolling up our sleeves and getting out of bed and going to work is the answer.

Obama has an opportunity to become great...to go down in the annuls of history as Lincoln, the president he professes to so admire. But he's missing it. In one stroke of his pen, he is signing away his place as a great leader of our nation.
Obama enjoys right now the good will and trust of most Americans. This trust and faith in him as a leader gives him the unique opportunity to channel that trust into a display of power and action unparalleled in most of our lifetimes. Obama could call upon Americans to unite in sacrificing and working for this country and for each other. He could tell Americans the truth...that we have been living as a nation in a way that is not sustainable...that we are in for some hard times...that we, as individuals, may have to pay for some things that we may have had no part in purchasing...indeed that we may have to sleep in a bed we did not make. He could tell Americans that they need to stand up, work, volunteer, give, sacrifice, create, problem solve. But he must not trust Americans with that message. He must think we cannot handle the truth, or that his popularity would suffer if he told it to us, even though every thinking American knows it already. He must think we are not capable of sacrifice, charity, and hard work.
Instead of telling us we must change how we live now in order to live better in the future, he is trying to preserve our way of life as best he can in the short run. The plan that our leaders in government are putting in place, even as I type this, may indeed be a bandaid. But a bandaid doesn't help if a cut isn't the problem. What we in our nation need to face is exactly what we tell our children they must face if they make bad choices...consequences. If we have been living beyond our means, then we better live below them for a while. We don't need an entire overhauling of the capitalist system. The system did not fail us. We failed it, and we are seeing the results. Now we should accept the consequences, instead of running away from them and trying out another system that we have already seen, from looking beyond our shores, does not work. After suffering the consequences, we would understand our boundaries better, respect the system more, and accept more heartily what it requires of each of us.
Obama could help lead us through this period of correction. But he isn't. He is trying a detour. And the detour will never take us back to the path we have always been on but muddied for awhile. It will not take us back to the path forged by the work and sweat of those who have gone before us.
But of course not. He can't trust us with a spade and shovel.